In the latest issue of The Escapist, they honor Gunpei Yokoi, a man you may not be familiar with. You are familiar with, however, the vast amount of products he's responsible for. These products include such bundles of joy as the Game Boy, Virtual Boy (thank him for the head aches!) and he even found time to invent the d-pad. And that wasn't enough to stop him, as he went on to create some of the company's best franchises, such as Metroid and Kid Icarus.And really, if you're not up to snuff on the guy, how can you call yourself a fanboy? So, do yourself a favor and head on over, give the piece a read and lie to everyone. Tell them that you always knew all of that and frankly it's embarrassing that they assumed otherwise.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-07-2007 @ 4:34PM
Mr Khan said...
Didn't he also make the WonderSwan? (oddly enough, for Nintendo's eternal rival, Ban Dai)
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3-07-2007 @ 5:11PM
Ethan Duffy said...
He did that after he got fired over the Virtual Boy, which needed a lot more testing. It's a shame, he got to make the wonderswan though.
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3-07-2007 @ 6:58PM
Rubang B said...
He's also the man behind the Ultra Hand, the Love Tester, and the Game & Watch. And while Shigeru Miyamoto was working on the next couple NES and SNES Mario games, Gunpei Yokoi was making the Super Mario Land games on Game Boy. So he's also responsible for Daisy.
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3-07-2007 @ 10:43PM
BPM said...
The puzzle game that just came out for DS and PSP, Gunpey? It was originally on the WonderSwan, and was named after him in memory.
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3-08-2007 @ 4:40PM
Thomas said...
Mr. Yokoi was truly an important figure in Nintendo's (and indeed video games') history. With the success of the Game Boy, his department was charged with keeping the handheld system supplied with games while Shigeru Miyamoto and co. basked in the limelight of the hit Super Famicom.
There was something of a rivalry between the two developers. Although Yokoi worked with a number of his own properties (it's no accident that the sequels to Metroid and Kid Icarus appeared on Game Boy), he was also responsible for bringing Mario (a Miyamoto property) to the Game Boy.
The Mario Land team finally replaced their mustachioed mascot with their own creation, Mario's complete antithesis Wario. In fact, many of the microgames in Wario Ware pay tribute to Yokoi's earlier and forgotten Nintendo successes.
More info can be found here:
http://www.n-sider.com/articleview.php?articleid=482
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